Just a short, simple blog for Bob to share his thoughts.
21 March 2026 • by Bob • Humor, Education
I took "Power Mechanics" and "Auto Shop" in high school, and it was a lot of fun tearing engines apart and getting them purring like a kitten after reassembly. Everything from lawnmower engines to big block V8s and 4-barrel carburetors.
So. Much. Fun.
True story - the first motors we worked with were, obviously, lawn mower engines. Everything was done in two-man teams, and my partner and I were assigned our motor to play with. Our assignment was to disassemble the motor, measure ever part, look up specs in a manual, write down the wear on each component, then reassemble and get it to turn over.
Believe it or not, this entire process took several days, which was mostly due to hauling all our parts from the wall lockers where they were kept at the beginning of each class, checking out the requisite tools (and fighting with classmates when there was a shortage of a particular tool), looking up parts and their specs in assorted manuals, and hauling all our parts back the wall lockers at the end of each class. The actual disassembly and reassembly was the easy part, especially since I have a GREAT memory when it comes to remembering where everything went.
When my partner and I were done, we reassembled our motor, and we were disturbed to discover that we had a few parts left over. I kid you not, we disassembled and reassembled our motor several times, and we couldn't find any place for those parts to go. We decided to turn the motor over anyway, and after our instructor signed off on our project, I mentioned that we had some parts left over when we were done. He asked to see them, and then he said, "Oh, THOSE parts. Yeah, they've been floating around the shop for years. They don't go to anything. Whenever a team winds up with them, they toss them into another team's wall locker just to mess with them," which is EXACTLY what my partner and I did after hearing this news.